Trouble with USB

[mekemesh]

Hello,

I am having trouble with my desktop TI.

I am in contact with virus.info support but my USB problem remains unsolved so I hope someone can help me in this forum.

My old USB cable that came with the TI suddenly stopped working. And I am having a nightmare finding a replacement. One strange exception is that I manage to use a old printer cable I had around, but the cable is to short. I have bought two new USB A-B cables from different vendors but they only give error messages in my device manager. The same cables is working fine with other devices like my printer so they are not faulty. I believe the last cable I bought is of good quality, shielded.

-The Virus is on a seperate hub on my computer motherboard, no bandwidth problems.
-During reboot I have seen USB connection established/lost on my Virus using the new cable.
-I have turned off power saving that might affect my USB ports.
-Error messages in my device manager is of type - unknown device in USB ports and the audio and midi drivers not visible. Else, - the USB driver is visible but it is tagged yellow with error code 10 or 43, not sure about the last code and - audio and midi drivers not visible.
-Have tried 4 different OS installlations.

I hope someone in the forum have some suggestions and maybe a USB cable recommendation that can save me :)

Regards,
mekemesh

[MBTC]

One suggestion -- probably not what you were hoping for exactly, but it solves a lot of USB related problems and I'm surprised it's not a more popular option:

Use analog outs from the Virus to your audio interface, and use USB only for MIDI / interacting with the plugin.

Solved all my latency and USB woes. Side benefit is it sounds better than audio streaming over USB. Drawback is of course is a couple of more cables.
Benefits outweigh drawbacks.

[mekemesh]

Hi MBTC,

Thanks for your help.

The TI sounds better in my opinion using analogue out, your suggestion is a good one regarding audio. I have not messed much with the settings in Virus Control/Common page before. They are per patch or performance right? Does this means that I have to change the settings everytime I boot up the Virus or can I make it a global setting that is stored?

If I can use a stored global setting I could do some more testing with different USB cables during boot to see if my computer finds the Virus.

Best regards,
Mekmesh :)

[MBTC]

Hi MBTC,

Thanks for your help.

The TI sounds better in my opinion using analogue out, your suggestion is a good one regarding audio. I have not messed much with the settings in Virus Control/Common page before. They are per patch or performance right? Does this means that I have to change the settings everytime I boot up the Virus or can I make it a global setting that is stored?

If I can use a stored global setting I could do some more testing with different USB cables during boot to see if my computer finds the Virus.

Best regards,
Mekmesh :)

I believe the settings are as you described, but because I'm always using the Virus with VC in a DAW, I'm always in sequencer mode on the Virus. So any settings changes I've made get persisted with the project file (Cubase project in my case). So the Virus configuration remains where I left it the last time I worked on the project.

When I read your message again, I think I scanned it too quickly the first time. If I understand correctly, your USB connection problems happen independently of whether you're actually making music with the Virus and are manifesting in ways that have nothing to do with the synth?

If that's the case I would try putting an external USB card in your PC to try to rule out something going on at the hardware level / motherboard USB ports. If you're on a laptop that's probably not such a feasible choice, although I've written a lot on this forum about why I don't like laptops for music making so that's a different subject I guess.

I guess you could always try the analog outs just to help narrow down what the Virus needs to actually do over USB, then if it still occurs, start to focus on USB as a potential hardware problem, repairing or getting repaired as needed.

If everything works fine with the shorter printer cable, it seems like just a cable issue.

Does the cable you've tried have a little cylinder toward one of the ends like this?: http://imgur.com/iy68Uoc

All of the cables I've had good luck with have this feature -- it's some type of filter that dissipates noise.

[mekemesh]

Hi,

I appreciate all your inputs, I will follow all advices I can to make the TI work again with a new USB cable. It is such a vaste only using it is a midi module without Virus Control.

Yes, you are right. The problems with my USB connections actually starts during boot into Windows. I always get a message saying "USB connection established\USB link lost" during boot. I am not able to use Virus Control/VST because it cannot find any TI.

Luckily I am on a desktop and have installed an optional USB bracket, it seems like the Virus is a looner on the that hub (checked in device manager). So the bandwidth should be good. Maybe I need a better hub to support my new USB cables? Any recommendations?

The TI works very well with my old printer A-B cable, no artifacts using Virus Control. I hope it is only a cable\hub? issue.

Strangely, my old printer cable got cylinder in the end just like on the picture. The new cables I bought dont have a cylinder. I dont think my local computer center have these types of cables. I have difficulities finding them on my local web shops also. Where can I find them? I will certainly buy a cable and maybe a new hub that you can recommend :)

Best regards,

[MBTC]

Hi,

I appreciate all your inputs, I will follow all advices I can to make the TI work again with a new USB cable. It is such a vaste only using it is a midi module without Virus Control.

Yes, you are right. The problems with my USB connections actually starts during boot into Windows. I always get a message saying "USB connection established\USB link lost" during boot. I am not able to use Virus Control/VST because it cannot find any TI.

Luckily I am on a desktop and have installed an optional USB bracket, it seems like the Virus is a looner on the that hub (checked in device manager). So the bandwidth should be good. Maybe I need a better hub to support my new USB cables? Any recommendations?

The TI works very well with my old printer A-B cable, no artifacts using Virus Control. I hope it is only a cable\hub? issue.

Strangely, my old printer cable got cylinder in the end just like on the picture. The new cables I bought dont have a cylinder. I dont think my local computer center have these types of cables. I have difficulities finding them on my local web shops also. Where can I find them? I will certainly buy a cable and maybe a new hub that you can recommend :)

Best regards,

You can find the cables on Amazon, search for USB cable with ferrite core. Newegg.com is another possibility. I'd be surprised if local stores didn't have them -- any electronics or computer type store. Maybe now that you know what to look for they will reveal themselves?

A USB card can also be obtained from Amazon, but if the printer cable works and it has the ferrite core, there's a good chance that's your only problem so I would start with the correct cable type first.

[mekemesh]

Hi,

I did a new search and found a USB cable with ferrit core in a local computer store. I have just ordered one.

Will keep you posted after I have tested it with my TI. I am crossing my fingers, if it dont work I will follow the next approach with a hub or new bracket. When people say hub they mean an external device right? Not something inside the computer?

Regards,
Mekemsh

[MBTC]

When people say hub they mean an external device right? Not something inside the computer?


Yes, most times when people say USB hub they mean the external device rather than what you see in device manager on your PC.

[mekemesh]

Hi,

I recieved my new USB 2.0 cable with ferrite cores in both ends today. However my problem still persists.

Booting up windows with TI on and using the new cable gives me unknown device in device manager. When updating the drivers manually, choose from a list it finds Virus TI USB 2.9.66. but with error message code 10 "Device cannot start". I used the new cable on my old printer and it works perfectly so it is not anything wrong with it. When I tried my TI with the older printer cable it works perfect again.

I cannot understand why the new cable dont work because the specifications is identical to the older USB printer cable. Maybe it is a difference after all regarding voltage or something? I am lost.

I dont know how to proceed from now, if I should go for an external hub. And I dont know what kind of hub I should buy. There are hubs with seperate power or powered from the USB port. I have read at virus.info that a Belkin 7 port hub with MTT support (multiple transaction translator) is a good choice. My concern is, will this make a difference regarding my TI?

Best regards,
Mekemesh

[MBTC]

It's a frustrating problem, I know -- but for the sole reason that the printer cable is working for you, I would continue down on the path of the cable as the culprit even if it takes a bit of determination. For example, what is the length of the cable that works versus the new cable that doesn't? Longer cables tend to be more problematic, maybe try a shorter length. Also possible you just got a bad cable, maybe buy one from a different source. It might come down to a frustrating process of trial and error, but at least with the cable you're starting with the cheapest component first, which is usually the approach to take.

Honestly I wouldn't mess with external hubs yet -- they usually introduce more opportunity for error and if something is going on with the cable, I think it would only make matters worse. The recommendations I've seen from Access in the past were along the lines of eliminating external hubs where possible when troubleshooting. The benefit they add is of course the additional ports, not a cleaner signal on the line.

[mekemesh]

Hi,

Thanks MBTC, I appreciate all your inputs. I will follow the same path trying different brands and lengths. You mentioned in a previous post that you had luck with USB cables using ferrite cores. Do you have a link to one or two of them that is working for you? I might have a better chance if I know excactly which ones I should search for (brand and lengths). There are many different of them on Newegg or Amazon where you recommended me to search.

Best regards,
Mekemesh

[MBTC]

I wish I could help with a specific cable brand/model, but all of the USB cables I have had good luck with just ended up in a pile of spare cables that I have from having purchased so many electronics and gadgets over the years. I first became aware of the ferrite core issue some years back when I had a GPS that was very picky about which cable it used to perform map updates over the Internet. I noticed with cheap USB cables, the updates would take forever, from what was presumably error correction and data retries, but with a cable with a ferrite core it worked better -- it would literally make the difference between the entire operation taking hours to succeed versus a couple of minutes.

With the Virus, with a good USB cable I was able to get decent results as long as I was willing to live with a certain amount of latency, but using the analog outs made that problem go away so I haven't really looked back, so I'm not using USB for streaming at on the Virus currently. I mention all of this this because when I say I have good results -- I mean with electronics that (like the Virus) are apparently very sensitive to conditions like noise which would cause a lot of retries or delays or otherwise impact throughput (I'm sure audio streaming falls into this category).

However on Amazon you can see user ratings for products. Usually if you order a product with a high number of rating and also a high number of total customers that rated it, it's hard to go wrong IMHO.